A sore thumb¶
Core Argument¶
Here, the author mounts a polemical defence of the former Workers’ International League (WIL) leadership against accusations made by a comrade Stuart in his Bulletin. Stuart’s central charge, described as a “sore thumb” running through his text, is that the WIL leadership was theoretically weak and afflicted by “infectious activism,” whereas the former Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) supposedly paid “serious attention to theory.” Stuart further alleges that the WIL operated with a “mechanical, somewhat sectarian spirit” towards other groups, and that these negative characteristics were carried over into the fused Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
The author’s core argument is that Stuart provides no evidence whatsoever for these assertions. The reply demands concrete examples—documents dealing with questions of theory or policy—to substantiate such sweeping condemnations. In their absence, the author dismisses the criticism as having “no validity” and invites the SWP membership to do the same. The author refuses to reopen “old wounds” or “sterile discussions of the past,” warning that doing so would only introduce past antagonisms into the fused party and benefit the “professional faction fighter.”
The polemic sharpens into a counter-attack. Stuart’s claim that the leadership must “learn how to learn from the membership” is interpreted as an accusation that the WIL leadership previously lacked the most elementary understanding of its role. The author responds with sarcastic irritation, particularly because Stuart presents himself as a “self-styled theoretician of the ‘organisational’ school.” The author contrasts the difficult conditions faced by the British comrades—without the “personal guidance and authority of comrade Trotsky”—with the work of the American party, suggesting Stuart should learn from the British experience rather than patronise it.
A crucial historical context is deployed to refute Stuart’s characterisation of the pre-fusion situation. Stuart had claimed that the fusion came at the end of a “bitter internal struggle in both organisations,” implying parity. The author corrects this by stating that the RSL was divided into three separate organisations, had been dissolved by the International Secretariat, and had to be specially reconstituted weeks before the fusion. In contrast, the WIL was a politically united organisation; its minority received only one vote at the last conference and had no political differences. Stuart’s implication of a symmetrical “bitter internal struggle” is therefore a deliberate falsification.
The author concludes by accusing Stuart of replacing materialist interpretation with “idealistic invention” for purely factional ends. The chapter is a defence of the WIL’s record and a demand for evidence, framed as a rebuttal to what it considers slanderous and unsubstantiated factional attacks.